The girl who drew horses

I went to a school reunion several years ago. When one lady heard my name she exclaimed, “I remember you. You are the girl who drew horses.”

I was a tall kid so I was always put at the back of the room so as not to interfere with anyone else's view of the blackboard. It wasn't until I was about twelve that teachers realized I was also very short sighted and had no idea what it was they were doing on the blackboard. Everything I had learned had been from oral information. Visually isolated from the rest of the class, and safe from observation in the back row, I entertained myself by drawing on the margins of my texts and exercises while I listened to the lessons. Horses, horses, always horses.

Never horses and riders. Just horses, leaping and soaring. Soaring out the window and galloping over the lawn and up, up front hooves neatly tucked up, over the school yard fence and away. “Theresa, can you tell us what is the Pythagoras's Theorem?” Oops, lost track there a bit.

I wonder now how much all those hours of visualizing leaping over barriers and cantering off into the unknown contributed to the life I am living now. I am heading off on my third trip to India the day before my birthday this year. It will be my sixty first birthday. I'm looking forward to spending it in an Air Singapore jet high above the Pacific.

My first trip I sent back photos and accounts of my adventure every month or so. I had planned to do it on the second trip but found myself getting bogged down in some depressive circumstances that I didn't really want to write about. But friends and relatives told me that they missed my stories and photos so I'm getting a bit more organized this time, setting up a blog and not limiting myself to travelogue type stuff. I wrote a lot of opinion pieces for Our Voice, a local street paper in Edmonton for a number of years so expect some of that stuff too.

The count down has started. Got my airplane ticket sitting on the nightstand. Consolidating and packing away my personal bits and pieces to leave my sublettor some breathing space. Cleaning up and throwing out, considering what to take with me this time.